Company briefs

Building products supplier
Alesco
has lifted its profit guidance for the year ended May 31 following the sale of its loss-making Parbury and Dekorform businesses in March. Alesco now expects 2012 after-tax profit before significant items to be $11.2 million-$11.4 million, up from $9.9 million-$10.7 million expected in January. It is still well below the result for the previous corresponding period of $15.3 million. DuluxGroup, which made a $188 million, $2 a share bid for Alesco in early May, said Alesco’s updated guidance had not changed its view on the offer. Dan Hall

Whitehaven Coal
announced that the installation of a longwall at its flagship Narrabri mine was complete, commissioning was under way and expected to take three months. It said about 30 per cent of the saleable coal would be PCI, with the remainder thermal coal. The company also said that all conditions for the sale of a 10 per cent stake in its Maules Creek project to Japan’s J-Power for $370 million had been completed.Jamie Freed

Biota Holdings
’ second-largest shareholder, the US-based East Hill, has lifted its stake to 12.35 per cent from 11.33 per cent. Carrie LaFrenz

BHP Billiton
said it was examining the potential sale of its one-third stake in the Guinea Alumina joint venture in West Africa. The refinery project has yet to be built.Jamie Freed

Fairfax Media
will meet the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance next Tuesday to respond to the union’s alternative plan to relocating about 60 company sub-editing jobs to New Zealand. “The talks were constructive and productive," said Fairfax Regional Media chief executive and publisher Allan Browne about yesterday’s meeting between the company and the MEAA. The union has proposed a sub-editors’ hub of about 40 journalists in Newcastle and Wollongong, a similar reduction in staff to what Fairfax had initially planned.Ben Holgate

Competition among Australian lenders was rapidly waning, the Mortgage and Finance Association of Australia has said. In a submission to the federal inquiry into the post-GFC banking sector, it said banks’ market share in housing finance climbed from 79 per cent in 2007 to 92 per cent in 2012, while non-banks’ shrank from about 14 per cent to 1 per cent. Ruth Liew